


The Edge of Hope

by MisterCottontail



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magical Girls, Kaiju, Mecha, Monsters, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 20:33:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3501890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MisterCottontail/pseuds/MisterCottontail
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My name is Hiro Hamada. You probably don’t know who I am, but… by the time this is done, that won’t matter. You’ll know what I’ve done. What we’ve all done. Three years ago, a portal was opened – a doorway to another world. Only two people ever went through it. I was one of them. The other… the other was a woman named Abigail. When I went through… We thought we were helping. We thought we were heroes. Only Abigail didn’t come back through with us. It was something else. Now, my friends and I are fighting to undo what we let loose. You may not know who I am, but you know who we are.</p><p>We are Big Hero 6.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Edge of Hope

“I think that will do, Dr. Krei.” Hiro steps back, staring up at the behemoth in front of him. Massive slabs of red titanium stretching up into the rafters of the warehouse, hanging off of a skeleton of steel. The large room reeks of ozone and hydraulics. Workers flitter around the space like ants, carting massive tanks of compressed oxygen from one mechanized lift to another. Others hang, suspended from above like wind chimes, moving across the monster with acetylene torches in hand.

“I’m glad, Hiro.” Krei’s voice has become withered and strained over the past few years. The horrors of that day take their toll in his dreams, where the pills can’t chase them away. “He may be our only chance.”

“Let’s take him for a spin.” Hiro steps forward, climbs up onto one of the several lifts nearby.

“Get dressed,” Krei smiles. “I’ll send you up.”

As the lift ratchets into motion and ascends, Hiro waits until he is clear of the workers, and steps out of his simple mechanic’s jumpsuit. He slips a silver and violet belt around his waist, locking it shut and letting it rest on his hips. Smiling to himself, he presses his thumb into the round depression in the belt buckle’s center. A loud hiss of gas expels from the many pockets along the belt, sending a cloud of black dust around him. As the light of the overhead construction lamps falls on the cloud, it ripples in waves of violet and red, like a puddle of oil stepped in by an uncaring pedestrian. He twists his thumb in the depression, sending a brief shock of electricity out into the shining black particles. The cloud condenses rapidly onto his bare skin, tightening around every crease of muscle and flesh from his neck to his feet. Millions of microscopic nanobots entwining around him, forming a mesh of bots as smooth as silk, but as strong as steel.

He flexes his arms experimentally, watching as the nanobot fabric constricts and hardens around his fist, responding to the neural implant Krei installed in the base of his neck. The lift grinds to a halt, leaving Hiro 40 feet above the ground, staring into an open hatch the size of a small car door. Stepping into the small chamber within, Hiro pulls the hatch shut. He slides comfortable into the large white vinyl seat in the center of the chamber, picking a shiny purple helmet up off of the floor nearby before plunking it down over his head. The nanobots around his neck automatically reach out, locking in to tiny hooks along the bottom of the helmet. He reaches out with his mind, sending tendrils of nanobots up from his shoulders. He grasps the handle of a large monitor bank overhead, and pulls, swinging the monitors down in front of his face.

Hiro flicks a switch along the side of the monitors, and dozens of tiny LED lights burst into life. He fumbles around the back of the screens for a moment, blindly searching for something. A translucent blue hard drive, the size of a playing card, sticks out of a slot in the back. Hiro presses the drive firmly into the computer system, and sits back.

Around him, thousands of gears and servos begin to fire and turn. The workers, finished gathering their tools, are already scattering from the room. The loud buzz of machinery running for the first time fills the area, shaking the warehouse walls. Forgotten bolts and discarded tools fall from the gigantic joints of the machine, falling unheard and unnoticed to the concrete floor below. Inside the chamber, Hiro leans back into the chair, letting a thin fiber optic wire probe out from the headrest into the scar tissue at the base of his neck. His head fills with a warm buzzing glow.

“Hello, Hiro.”

“Hello, Baymax.”

“It is good to see you. Why am I so large?”

“We have work to do, buddy.” Hiro pats the vinyl seat reassuringly. “Don’t worry, we’ll get her this time.”

Outside, in the ruins of San Fransokyo, birds and raccoons are fleeting the city block. Nearby buildings quake, years of dust and debris raining from their roofs. The massive door of the hangar-turned-warehouse rolls slowly upward. With one thunderous step, and then another, Baymax moves forward. Once clear of the door, the massive figure extends up to its full height. The external cameras places near the machine’s shoulders stare even with the 8th story of the apartment block nearby.

Dr. Alistair Krei, clinging to the building for support, looks up at his creation, nearly 90 feet of titanium, shining blood red in the light of the full moon. He laughs at a private joke as the mech crashes forward into the empty street. “I love that robot.”

“Gogo, Honey, I’m online.” Hiro mutters into his head com.

“We hear you, number 6. En route to the coast, tracking three daimyo signatures.”

“Fred, status?”

“Green like money, Hiro! The ‘Zilla is in position. I’m looking down the barrel right at the latest breach. No movement.”

“I’ve got a bit of a problem, here!” Wasabi shouts through the com, panicked. “Two daimyo behind me, and gaining.”

“Fred,” Hiro orders, “Hold position. Honey, break west and rendezvous with Wasabi.” A gurgling shriek cuts through the air, loud enough that the sound breaches the sealed pod inside Baymax 5.0’s midsection. “I’ll be at the beach in a moment. Just have something to take care of first. Over and out.”

Hiro concentrates, moving his mind through Baymax’s circuitry. He feels the fluid pumping through dozens of hydraulic pistons. Black oil runs through his veins. He turns, staring at the daimyo. This one is big, at least thirty feet tall, though it’s hard to judge the size of them. A writhing mass of tentacles, teeth, and eyes. Impossible forms that disintegrate and rebuild, desperately clinging to existence in a dimension they cannot understand. Some people pity them. Hiro is not one of them.

“Baymax,” Hiro shouts into the cockpit. “Rocket Fist!”


End file.
